Broken Reflection
by K. A. Raith
Summary: #1 of Temporal Collision 'verse - He is an enigma to him, a reflection he couldn't quite recognize, yet he can't help but get attached anyway. [Time-travel fic. Ichigo-centric. Warnings inside. One-shot. Complete.]


**_Disclaimer: _**_I don't own Bleach; Kubo Tite does. I do, however, own the idea and plot behind this story.__  
_

_**Setting:** AU post-Soul Society arc.  
_

_**Warning:** S__poilers up to chapter 418, b_romance/close mentor-student relationship/ship-tease_ (_depend on what kind of goggles you're wearing), English isn't author's first language, un-beta'ed. Don't read further if you're uncomfortable with the aforementioned stuffs.

* * *

**Broken Reflection**

_Dodge. Parry. Slash. Block. Slash–_

It was a dance of the deadliest kind.

–_Block. Stab. Dodge. Counter–_

His breathing was heavy – his heart was hammering too loud inside his rib cage, crawling up into his throat – his legs and arms were aching for rest, but he _couldn't _stop.

Not yet.

–_Slash. Parry. Duck. Stab. Dodge. Parry. Slash–_

His foe spat and snarled, smug facade all but crumbling down in the face of a prolonged stalemate; neither of them was giving inch or gaining ground.

–_Stab. Parry. Duck. Counter–_

Both of them were getting desperate; the dance had been going on _forever_, and sooner or later _someone_ would miss a step, breaking the predetermined pattern and allowing the other to dominate–

He couldn't let that someone be him.

–_Stab. Dodge. Slash–_

His sword whined and thrummed with energy – every last drop of _reiryoku _he could spend, pushed into the blade but not yet released – and voices whispered into his mind, urging him to _**use it now, you can't go on any longer**, strike before your wounds and exhaustion catch up, before your body fails you **and we'd be fuckin' screwed if that happens–**_

He gritted his teeth.

_No, not yet._

He would miss if he struck too soon.

–_Duck. Counter. Slash. Parry. Slash–_

He misjudged his lunge, careening too far to the side – his heart stuttered because _fucking goddamn no I was so close_; his foe took advantage then, not to strike but to retreat, and he pursued with a snarl, pressing on and not letting his foe out of arm's reach because it would be over if his foe released too far from him and _dear fucking gods I'm too tired and I can't let _him_ down so please–_

_–Counter. Stab. Block. Slash–_

His eyes caught it then; a miniscule gap in the defense where his foe should have dodged instead of giving a downward parry. From the way those eyes widened, his foe had just seen it too; body moved swiftly to cover the slip-up–

Too late.

He struck – felt more than saw the blade sliding through ribs, eliciting a scream of incoherent rage; he roared in reply, unleashing the tightly suppressed energy inside his sword–

–_a deafening explosion; a bright, blinding light–_

It was over.

* * *

_"You're ready," the Other said softly._

_Kurosaki Ichigo looked up from his place on the cave's floor, hands pausing from well-practiced motion of cleaning Zangetsu's blade, and caught the Other's gaze with his own. He could see a glimmer of satisfaction lurking behind those usually apathetic eyes, and it made him absurdly pleased with himself and the progresses he'd made, despite knowing fully well how _messed up _the whole situation was._

_It scared him sometimes, how much he'd come to seek and value the Other's approval._

_"It's tomorrow, then?" he asked just to make sure, pushing down the uncomfortable train of thought from his mind. The Other shifted from his usual spot near the cave's entrance, the flickering light of the campfire reflected on his eyes. Briefly, his face took a wistful, faraway expression, before it smoothed back into its usual stoic mask._

_"Yes," he finally replied, his voice filled with grim determination. His eyes hardened, and Ichigo could imagine the way the Other's fingers clenched around the hilt of the sword he could never put down._

_"Tomorrow, we'll storm Las Noches."_

* * *

"Hold still for a moment."

The warmth of the cave was a welcome change from the cold and desolate dessert. He shivered as the healing _kidō _knitted a particularly nasty laceration wound on his chest closed. No matter how many times it happened, he still couldn't get used to the feeling of the Other's _reiatsu_'s skittering across his skin. He suspected he never would; it was just too similar and too different with his own _reiatsu_ to ignore.

"So," he said when it looked like the Other wasn't going to provide a conversation, "what next?"

"You rest until you can walk on your own," the Other told him in his usual no-nonsense tone. "I'm _not _going to haul you through the Garganta."

He frowned. "I can walk on my own just fine. I _walked _in the throne room."

"That wasn't a walk; that was a waddle."

The younger of the two glared, and received a blank look in return. He huffed and crossed his arms in a show of indignation, but tilted his head obediently when the Other tried to examine a small gash below his left ear.

"It's going to be hard for us to explain, you know," he mused, gesturing at both of them. "This whole thing. _You_."

The Other hummed as if in agreement, but he could feel the atmosphere changed suddenly in the wake of his statement. He straightened himself, eyes narrowed as he took in the Other's countenance. Now that he looked closer, he could see subtle tenseness on the Other's shoulders and jaw.

He felt his frown deepened at that.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"What makes you think there's something wrong?"

"You sorta froze when I said about explaining this together to the others," he pointed out, and caught the way the Other's eyes flicked to the side. "What is it? What _aren't _you telling me?"

"... I'm not coming with you."

"What? Why?" he demanded.

The Other sighed, stopped the healing _kidō_, and made to move away, but Ichigo quickly snatched his right arm, threading his fingers through the looping chain for additional measure. The Other looked a bit taken aback at that. Ichigo himself didn't knew where the sudden boldness came from; all he knew was that he couldn't let the Other pull away now.

For the first time, the Other looked so tired, so different from the aloof and rock-steady man Ichigo had come to know.

"I'm not coming with you because... I don't see what use there is."

He flashed a small, indecipherable smile that twisted Ichigo's inside with uneasiness.

"I'm just a shadow. I have no place in your time. Sooner or later, I'll disappear."

* * *

_He shakily stood up and glanced around the throne room, the roar of his last attack _– _one part_ Getsuga Tenshō, _one part_ Cero, _and one part pure desperation_ – _still ringing in his ears. His eyes caught the sight of a bloody figure several meters away, slumping like a discarded rag doll against one of the pillars._

_The figure wasn't moving._

_He limped over, maneuvering around rubble and uneven ground, and stopped just out of arm reach from the traitor. From what he could see, the traitor wasn't breathing either. He cautiously poked the bloodied body with Tensa Zangetsu just to be sure, partly expecting it to suddenly rise and start cackling in a manner befitting a horror movie villain._

_The body gave no reaction other than oozing even more blood to the floor._

_He stared numbly for several moments, before shakily releasing a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. A laugh of disbelief slipped out of his mouth, echoing hollowly in the demolished chamber._

Fuck.

_He swayed a bit on the spot, adrenaline rush finally wearing off and leaving him with bone-deep exhaustion. A chuckle slipped out of his mouth, unbidden; it soon escalated into a hysterical laugh, and it made his bruised ribs ache but he didn't care, didn't want to stop because it had been two very long _months _followed by a very long _battle _but now it was _over _and he could finally come _home_–_

Fuck_, _I did it_._

I _did _it.

I_–_

I had killed.

_He swallowed and clenched his hands, laughter subsiding. He didn't know what he was supposed to feel, what emotion he was supposed to show. He had only two interactions with the man __–_ the first one on the Sōkyoku Hill and the last one just now _–_ but he knew what the man was capable of, seen it in the nightmares the Other called memories; on the other hand, a Hollow the man wasn't... and he had cut him down anyway.

_He halted his train of thoughts when his sense registered a blooming presence, one very familiar from their prolonged contacts in the dessert. The Other had entered the throne room, his steps completely silent except for the soft clinking noise his chain made. Apathetic eyes glanced around, taking in the crumbling roof, the broken pillars, every slash and scorch marks that littered the walls and the floors, before stopping at Aizen's still cooling corpse, an unreadable emotion flashed across his face._

_For a moment neither of them spoke. Ichigo was still too exhausted to make a small talk, and the Other was too caught up in whatever emotions the body on the floor invoked. He awkwardly gave a supporting pat on the Other's shoulder, and received an appraising glance in return._

_"Good work," the Othe__r murmured softly._

_He nodded jerkily. "I think he kinda underestimated me during the first half of the fight," he gestured at the corpse, "but I did it." He frowned, looking down at his hands. "I... killed him."_

_It was his turn to receive a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder. The Other stayed silent while he tried to gather his thoughts._

_"I'm okay with that," he answered the unspoken question. "It was necessary. He____–_ I've seen what he's done... would've done... could do_. It's just that... he was scared, you know." He looked up at the Other. "I could feel it in his blade, during the last few moments... he was desperate, and____–_"

_"–for a moment all you could see was just another person... albeit a quite twisted one, and you felt bad for taking his life," the Other finished._

_Ichigo nodded. "Something like that."_

_The Other sighed and tilted his head in contemplation. "I could try to wax some inspiring and clichéd speeches about how your compassion made you human, or about how the abyss hasn't looking back at you yet," he said wryly, "but I think deep down you already know that. This is something that you need to come to term by yourself."_

_"I know," replied the younger of the two. To lift the somber mood, he added, "No need to break into expositions on me. The ones from Aizen are already godawful enough."_

_The Other snorted at that remark and roughly ruffled his hair, making it even messier that it currently was. Ichigo squawked indignantly, swatting the offending limb away._

_"Hey!"_

_The Other chuckled and vanished from Ichigo's side in a flit of _shunpo_ before the younger male could pull some forms of retaliation. He reappeared near the miraculously still standing throne and crouched down, placing his palm flat on the ground before making a pulling gesture. A small column rose from the floor and stopped when it had reached his waist. The top part of the column slid to the side, revealing a container, and the Other picked something up from it._

_Ichigo's__ breath caught. He shuffled to the Other's side, too spent to even use_ shunpo, _warily eyeing the object in the Other's hand._

_"That's–"_

_"The_ hōgyoku_, yes," the Other murmured, bringing up said object to eye level. "I've never seen it up close before."_

_Ichigo__ hadn't either. The only time he caught glimpse of the orb was when __Aizen__ pulled it out of __Rukia's__ chest, and he was too busy bleeding on the ground and worrying about said girl to pay closer attention. The orb glittered innocuously, black and silver and blue and purple, reflecting the artificial light of the chamber. It was quite hard to believe that such a small thing could've caused so much misery in the future._

* * *

He shot off across the dark expanse that made up the inner part of a Garganta. The path he created was rough and brittle, but there was no need for him to make a good one. It wasn't as if he were going to impress his present company, after all.

They spent most of they journey without speaking. The Other's steps were silent, completely nonexistent at times; if it weren't for the noise made by the chain, Ichigo would've thought the Other had bailed out on him long time ago. He could honestly say he would be disappointed – and would probably throw a fit in the process – if it were to happen. The probability was small, though; after all, the Other had promised.

Be that as it may, he still sneaked a glance behind at random interval, just to be sure.

* * *

_He gazed into the darkness within the gaping dimensional riff – a riff that would lead him home – __hesita__ting in taking the first step. It wasn't because he didn't know how to traverse the space inside; the Other had instructed him about it enough times for him to be able to do it in his sleep. No, what made him hesitate was standing behind him, tall and proud yet unassuming – stoic with underlying of wistfulness in his countenance._

_He closed his eyes, feeling conflicted. There were many things unresolved between them, not to mention he felt that he was largely indebted to the Other. The Other had been every bit of a bastard to him at first, but he had helped him to get stronger, to be able to control his power better. Ichigo wasn't an ungrateful person. He wanted to pay the Other back, but he wouldn't be able to do that if he left the Other here; Hueco Mundo was vast, and the Other had perfected the art of hiding._

_The solution was obvious._

_He opened his eyes, plastered his best glare, and turned around._

_"Come with me," he demanded._

_The Other blinked. He stalked forward, and the Other actually took a step back._

_"Come with me," he repeated. "I don't care whether... whether you're just a shadow, whether you're not supposed to exist in this time or whatever–" he reached out and gripped the front of the Other's_ shihakushō. _"I owe you, or maybe _you_ owe_ me _for this... this whole _freaky_ business, I don't know– and _this_ is your fault anyway so you should be the one doing the explaining– and you haven't even taught me _everything, _and I know you're... tough enough but like _hell_ I'll leave you alone in a shitty place like this–" he swallowed, suddenly realizing that he was rambling._

_The Other still hadn't spoken._

_"You said you miss them," he continued in a softer tone. "I know it's not the same but you still can see them, even if it's only for a while– even if you're really going to be gone later. So– come. Come _home_ with me."_

_A heavy silence followed his statement. His breathing had become quite ragged along the way. He kept looking down, unable to bring himself to see the Other's expression, feeling a bit embarrassed by his outburst. He flinched when a hand landed on top of his head and softly ruffled his hair. The Other suddenly ducked down and pressed his forehead against his, and he couldn't look away from those burning amber-gold eyes._

_The reply, when it came, was soft and tinged with underlying emotions he didn't dare to identify._

_"Okay."_

* * *

The darkness split apart up ahead, opening way to a clear morning sky.

He couldn't stop the grin that formed at the sight.

"I'm home."

* * *

_**Author's Note:**_

_Uh, yeah. Time travel, but it's not the focus of the story._

_'Ichigo' here is post-SS version, and 'the Other' is Deicide/post-Dangai-training version. It was a pyrrhic victory in the Other's original timeline, so he got back in time, nabbed the current Ichigo from Dangai during their journey back from SS, hid in Hueco Mundo, and drove the kid's ass hard into the ground with training-from-hell so they could take out Aizen & his cronies together. The chronological order of the scenes is 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5, 7 (the italic one first, then the regular one before that)._

_The sequel is up, titled **Butterflies, Hurricanes**._

_Reviews will be greatly appreciated, and flames will be laughed at._

_**~Keylan Raith**_


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